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83rd out of 116 books
—
19 voters
The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of the Perfect Dinner
by
Jay Rayner
An astronomical gastronomical undertaking —one of the world’s preeminent restaurant critics takes on the giants of haute cuisine, one tasting menu at a time
Like the luxury fashion companies Gucci and Chanel, high-end dining has gone global, and Jay Rayner has watched, amazed, as the great names of the restaurant business have turned themselves from artisans into internatio...more
Like the luxury fashion companies Gucci and Chanel, high-end dining has gone global, and Jay Rayner has watched, amazed, as the great names of the restaurant business have turned themselves from artisans into internatio...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
June 24th 2008
by Henry Holt and Co.
(first published January 1st 2008)
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rayner is undoubtedly one of the most gifted food writers around: he is funny, greedy (idefinitely a good quality for a food writer), straightforward and most important of all knows what he is talking about when it comes to eating. if you love his word of mouth blog entries, guardian columns and various appearances on tv, radio etc. there is no chance that you won't enjoy this. in his 2008 book rayner questions the possibility of hunting down the perfect dinner at the most notable fine dining re...more
I'm not sure what I expected from this book, but it surely wasn't what I received. Rayner is a snarky bastard, to be sure, but he spends a lot of time thinking about what he eats, and more importantly, why. A book chronicling a critic jetting to expensive restaurants around the world would get boring if all it did was describe the food. Instead, Rayner astutely recognizes that he is a unique position to see if 3 star restaurants are worth the sometimes insane expense he lays out. The disappointm...more
Jay Rayner has written only one book -- this one -- and, if there is Mercy in the Universe, he will not write another, at least until he gets his head right. This is easily the most depressing book I have read in many years. Each chapter recounts a visit to a city which is "big" in the culinary world; each was more depressing than the last. The chapter on Las Vegas touched not only on the great food available in that city but on the falsity, the ostentatiousness, the unreality and pretense of th...more
Aug 12, 2009
Meave
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommended to Meave by:
enjoyed his writing style on his Top Chef Masters blog on bravot
I apologize in advance for this, but I refuse not to say it:
My goodness, Jay Rayner certainly is full of himself!
OK, now that that's out of my system (sorry again), let's get to it. This book is pretty ridiculous, and I mean that outside of Rayner's acknowledgment of his and the premise's ridiculousness. Even his criticism of others' pomposity comes off as pompous. He relishes pork dishes to the point of fetishism, and despite his attempt to dismiss his Jewish heritage as only genetic, it comes...more
My goodness, Jay Rayner certainly is full of himself!
OK, now that that's out of my system (sorry again), let's get to it. This book is pretty ridiculous, and I mean that outside of Rayner's acknowledgment of his and the premise's ridiculousness. Even his criticism of others' pomposity comes off as pompous. He relishes pork dishes to the point of fetishism, and despite his attempt to dismiss his Jewish heritage as only genetic, it comes...more
Being a person who enjoys a good meal, I definitely salivated over the descriptions of some of the dinners. I enjoyed the - at times acid - descriptions of chefs and restaurants.
BUT - I was terribly, terribly put off by the editing. For the first third of the book, all of the prices were given in dollars and pounds (but the format wasn't always the same). That stopped in the second third, and only pounds were used. The third third then resumed the double explanation. Early in the book, a footno...more
BUT - I was terribly, terribly put off by the editing. For the first third of the book, all of the prices were given in dollars and pounds (but the format wasn't always the same). That stopped in the second third, and only pounds were used. The third third then resumed the double explanation. Early in the book, a footno...more
Sep 30, 2009
Brenda Mengeling
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
foodies,
Shelves:
45,
food-eating-cooking
I found this book and the voice of Jay Rayner very enjoyable to read. The premise of the book is his search for a perfect high-end restaurant meal. He travels to Moscow, Dubai, New York, Tokyo, London and Paris in his search. He is funniest when he has a bad meal, but he does a lot of reflecting on the whole world of high-end restaurants from the blogs, reviews, chefs, ingredients, decor, patrons and personnel. He goes off on many tangents, but he doesn't get lost in them, and the narrative make...more
It's hard to describe how much I love this book because unlike other books I love, it is not a book that I had a hard time putting down. On the contrary, I needed to take breaks. I could picture and sometimes taste the dishes Rayner described, therefore I was sometimes too full to eat (read) the next paragraph. It was also disheartening at times to have to put the book away, get off the bus, and choose among bagels, donuts, and McDonald's for breakfast after reading about a Michelin three-star m...more
A really wonderful, amazing book!
I picked it up out of curiosity, having seen Rayner as a Top chef judge, but this is probably one of the best food books I've ever read. Rayner understands that you cannot separate food from culture, so his explorations of the global food culture are almost sociological. He doesn't just talk about what's on the plate; he also discusses how it got there and why it was put there.
Also, Rayner strikes a great balance between breathlessly fawning over expensive food a...more
I picked it up out of curiosity, having seen Rayner as a Top chef judge, but this is probably one of the best food books I've ever read. Rayner understands that you cannot separate food from culture, so his explorations of the global food culture are almost sociological. He doesn't just talk about what's on the plate; he also discusses how it got there and why it was put there.
Also, Rayner strikes a great balance between breathlessly fawning over expensive food a...more
Jay Rayner travels around the world (Paris, Dubai, London, New York, Tokyo) in search of the world's best restaurant and (supposedly) the world's best meal. This was an interesting read, but it made me realize that I must be very boring, food-wise. I simply can't justify dropping almost $500 on dinner, even if it is for book research, and I found the description of the crunchy skull and silky brains of one of his meals nauseating rather than delicious. Ironically, this peek into how the other ha...more
At the age of six, when he didn't like what his mother had cooked for dinner, the author picketed outside in front with a hand-lettered sign, "I want good food". Sort of set the stage for his future career as a food writer.
In this book, he travels the world in search for the perfect dinner. His adventures are amusing and expensive! I enjoyed the book, though I'll never be a hard-core foodie myself. I enjoyed the tangents into history and politics of food and restaurants. Gave me something to thi...more
In this book, he travels the world in search for the perfect dinner. His adventures are amusing and expensive! I enjoyed the book, though I'll never be a hard-core foodie myself. I enjoyed the tangents into history and politics of food and restaurants. Gave me something to thi...more
A decent enough food book, but a thought struck me early on and only became more reinforced as I read: Jay Rayner is a journalist first and a foodie second. His first love is clearly words; the book takes place too much in his head and not enough in his mouth.
Some distractingly bad copy-editing. For example, there's a hotel, the name of which is spelled two different ways on successive pages. Oh, and if there's one word you need to get right in a book about food, that word is "palate."
Worth borr...more
Some distractingly bad copy-editing. For example, there's a hotel, the name of which is spelled two different ways on successive pages. Oh, and if there's one word you need to get right in a book about food, that word is "palate."
Worth borr...more
While reading this book, avoid Expedia and Orbitz or any deep-seated desires to taste Toyko or tour New York City. Stay far, far away from wine auctions and think twice about booking reservations at restaurants that issue fraud alerts. Because after reading Rayner's adventures and quest for the perfect meal, you'll want to spend a lot of money for your next travel/foodie fix.
With each chapter--and arrival in another city--you may crave exotic food and culinary adventure and more of Rayner's writ...more
With each chapter--and arrival in another city--you may crave exotic food and culinary adventure and more of Rayner's writ...more
Jay Rayner, the restaurant critic for The Observer, goes around the world to investigate and document the globalization of high end gastronomy, in search of the perfect meal. He starts in Las Vegas, on to Moscow, Dubai, Tokyo, New York, London, Paris. Wretched excess? You betcha. It will make your most self-indulgent treat seem positively abstemious by comparison. The high notes are spectacular, but there are an almoat equal number of memorably awful experiences. It's great fun.
This book combines travel writing and food criticism, so it was kind of fun. Although I can't fully appreciate haute cuisine I find it interesting to know about. I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't like half (or maybe more than half) the food. This critic gets pretty cranky at times but who can blame him for grousing about a bad meal in a super-pricey restaurant? Poor guy, traveling the world on an expense account, staying at the finest hotels and eating at posh restaurants.
I was surprised at how much I liked this book. I picked it up expecting to not like it, because he kind of annoyed me on Top Chef Masters, but I enjoyed it immensely. And I'm very jealous of his little project to find the best fine dining experience there is. He's pompous, but amusing, which makes the former okay. Now, if I were to see him on Top Chef, I'd appreciate him.
If good food photography is "food porn," then this book is "food erotica." I could read his descriptions of meals anytime.
If good food photography is "food porn," then this book is "food erotica." I could read his descriptions of meals anytime.
Still reading this... its a loan from a co-worker so I probably need to hurry up and finish! I've gotten to Dubai and so far what I've enjoyed most is the foreword and the flashbacks to childhood meals. The introduction was downright hilarious and I thought I'd be laughing my way through this book, but that hasn't happened. I've not seen the author on the Food Network so I'm not familiar with his persona except as it reads through this book. He seems to hold a certain level of guilt or self-deri...more
British food critic goes to seven cities to taste high end cuisine. The list of cities shows how limited the viewpoint is....basically French and Japanese food are his standard for excellence. Leaves out a lot of the world when you just go to wildly expensive restaurants in Las Vegas, Moscow, Dubai, Tokyo, New York, London, and Paris. The writing can be amusing but the book is not a keeper.
Jay Raynor is an exceptional writer of food porn. If you don't like to eat, this book is not for you. Even as a vegetarian, I marvelled at the detail and flavours described in the book. Raynor also makes a lot of interesting points, valid only now in this rich food culture. What makes a great mean? What justifies 3-Micheline star prices? Are you a foodie or just greedy? A must read for lovers of cookery non-fiction!
Funny, charming and evocative. I rarely eat in restaurants or food that other people have cooked actually; and I'm not a good cook! But I enjoy reading this sort of 'foobio' ;P from a sociological standpoint. This one doesn't disappoint from that perspective. Rayner offers up good descriptions of the food, the restaurants, the people involved with the creation of the experience as well as side orders of gossip and trivia and personal history thrown in.
I read this each night while eating dinner, which was the ideal way to do it. The writing is engaging and often funny, and what wannabe foodie wouldn't want to read a tour of the world's fanciest restaurants? Still, the amount of money spent in so doing, despite the author's ongoing attempts at self-deprecation, is pretty disgusting, all the more so given that our collective culture of mindless spending seems to finally be at least in question these days.
I am a huge Anthony Bourdain fan so I thought that Jay Rayner's perspective on good food was absolutely ridiculous. With the mindset that good food comes with a big price tag I couldn't disagree with him more. He comes across as a pompous ass and this book is almost too annoying to get through.
Rayner is one of those guilt-wallowing, joyless individuals forever questioning the value of what they do (in his case, food writing and restaurant reviewing). He would benefit greatly from learning how to sample life's pleasures without all the twisted emotional baggage.
Not sure what I was expecting when I started this, interesting enough read about the author's search for the perfect meal however it got a little bit tedious and thankfully he also discussed other issues with the country he visited. If you are a real foodie this is the book for you!
It's a little hard to like a book about a guy who sets out to find the perfect meal, blowing $200-500 and more for meals in some of the most absurd restaurants on earth. But Rayner manages to make this excess both insightful and accessible.
A London restaurant critic travels the globe in search of the finest most extravagant meal. Enjoyable read for the serious foodie!
Written by a pithy British food critic, so I automatically like this book. He writes about his experiences at some of the fanciest restaurants around the world and I do enjoy reading about food.
meh. compared to Reichl or Bruni or other food writers, this book was dull, even with occasional bits of humor. i almost didn't finish it, if that says anything.
I always enjoy Jay Rayner on Top Chef, but after reading this, I just love him. A born foodie with fabulous wit and a powerful turn of phrase. I found myself wishing I were along for the ride and the meals.
Funny stories that are written in easy-to-read way, could be seen that an author is a food-critic and journalist. I recommend to all the fans of his humour.
Really fun, light book on the greatest restaurants in the world (or so he hopes). And his warning in the intro is right - this book will make you hungry!
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Jay Rayner is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster born in 1966.
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“The dish is...a fearsomely good combination of flavors and textures, the tapioca and the caviar playing tag with each other in the mouth.”
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“...it was as hot as Alaska in February.”
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13. Mai, 03:23 Uhr